All change for bin collection days

A third of households in the district will see their collection days change after a new waste recycling plant opens.

The South Kirkby waste site will process all the district’s waste, diverting 95 per cent away from landfill sites.

Changes to bin collections were due to start in March but were delayed after machinery for the plant got stuck in a frozen river in Canada.

Wakefield Council said the new bin collection system would start in the week of July 13.

Glyn Humphries, the council’s service director of environment and streetscene, said: “This is the biggest change in the district’s waste collections for many years and affects more than 150,000 households.

“We will do our absolute best to make sure things go as smoothly as possible.

“Please bear with us, if we don’t get it right please get in touch and we’ll sort it out as soon as we can.”

Letters have been sent to householders informing them of the changes.

A council spokeswoman said: “Wakefield Council might also be collecting people’s bins at a different time of day from 14 July, so please wait until 5pm before letting the Council know if it has not collected your bin.

“People can do this easily online at www.wakefield.gov.uk/missedbins or by calling 0345 8 506 506.”

The South Kirkby plant will be run by Shanks Waste Management under a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) deal with the council.

The plant will use lasers to automatically sort recyclable materials like paper and cardboard, glass, cans and plastic bottles.

The facility can handle up to 230,000 tonnes of waste a year and will generate around three quarters of the electricity needs from waste processed at the site.

Collections will be weekly, with recycling collected one week and household waste collected the other.

People are advised to wash and squash items before binning them.

Under the new system householders will have three bins, one for household waste, one for garden waste and a third for recycling.

They are asked to put glass bottles and jars, plastic bottles and cans they currently put in their recycling box into what is currently their paper and cardboard bin.